• cgTemplar@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    It’s also real money, otherwise Musk couldn’t have bought Twitter for $44 billion. He sure didn’t have that amount on his bank account but he still bought it all the same, thus giving him a substantial soft power through information.

    • Microw@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      True, but that would mean to tax billionaires by taking money from their lenders?

      • cgTemplar@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I don’t know, it just feels very convenient that wealth is considered money whenever is useful to the rich, and turns back into “wealth” a second later.

        What I find unacceptable is the double standard. I’ll keep the Musk example: a few banks and a few private companies made loans (which need to be reimbursed with real money) for Musk buying Twitter. A part of the exchange money came from the value of his own shares of Twitter (deducted from the 44b). Before that he has sold lots of Tesla shares which apparently gave him $20b in cash

        Why do we accept that this not-money money can be turned into real money whenever convenient, but cannot be taxed the rest of the time?

        There’s a problem with how we accept to think of financial money. If it can’t be taxed, then out shouldn’t be defined as being an equivalent of real-economy money. Or maybe it should be evaluated in a more realistic way?

        Not saying I have easy answers, but there’s clearly a problem IMO.

        • AngryMulbear
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          1 year ago

          “Sorry grandma, you have to eat cat food now because Elon was forced to sell his majority stake in Tesla crashing your pension plan.”

    • AngryMulbear
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      1 year ago

      Elon would have triggered a taxable event using his wealth to buy Twitter.

    • Aux@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      And now Twitter is down to $4b. Because wealth is not money.